Georgeann Wells Jams Women`s Basketball Into Era

NEW YORK — She had heroes, not heroines. Her role models were not the best female players of the last generation but rather the male leapers of the NBA.

``Julius Erving and Kareem -- all the things they can do,`` Georgeann Wells says. ``That`s what I want to do.``

Now she has done one of those things. Ten days before 1984 ended, the 6- foot-7 Wells put her right hand above the rim and dunked a field goal for West Virginia University, making herself the first female player ever to dunk a ball in a regulation game.

Wells, who added another dunk against Xavier of Ohio several days later, will probably be followed by a flurry of hands above the rim, in much the same way that the first sub-4-minute miler, Roger Bannister in 1954, was followed by dozens of other runners.

The age of the female dunkers became inevitable when the NCAA adapted a slightly smaller ball for women this season. Last season`s circumference was between 29 and 30 inches and the weight between 20 and 22 ounces; this year`s specifications are between 28 1/2 and 29 inches and 18 and 20 ounces. But several players have been able to dunk in practice and pickup games for years.

``We were all talking about it at the Olympic Trials,`` said Wells, one of the last players cut from the squad that won the gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games. ``A lot of them said they were going to be the first to do it, but I said to myself, `No, I`ve got to get it myself.` ``

Actually, she had already dunked last year, but that one had been canceled because her sister Marva had been fouled away from the ball.

``I heard the whistle as I went up for the dunk,`` Wells recalls. ``And I knew they either called me for walking or they had a foul on somebody.`` After that dunk was disallowed, Wells and the entire team went into a slump, as everybody tried to set her up for the historic dunk.

The barrier was not crossed during the Summer Games, and Wells was determined to be the one to cross it this season. Her father, Wesley, died of a heart attack last July, leaving his wife, Youland, and nine children in Columbus, Ohio, and the Wells sisters dedicated this season to him.

``I always wanted to be a chef, a gourmet chef,`` Wells says. ``My favorite meal was breakfast, any kind of breakfast for my father. Later, I realized I could be a basketball player, too.``

In the sixth grade, Georgeann was already 5 feet 11 inches, and towered above the teacher. But she says she was never tempted to hunch herself and hide her height because ``That`s not how my parents raised us.``

She says she has not been influenced by the trailblazers in female sports like Billie Jean King in tennis and Nancy Lieberman and the other stars of the first women`s pro league. Her goal was to soar like Julius Erving and hook like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

At West Virginia, she came under the tutelage of Kitty Blakemore, the longtime women`s coach who now oversees the academic and personal lives of the players, and Bill Fiske, a former Southern Connecticut player who had moved into coaching female players in high school in Florida.

``Women`s basketball is fun because most players are doing it for pride and ego and visibility, not for a future career.`` Fiske said. ``Most parents of women players want to see their daughters get a degree. There`s a lot of cheating going on in women`s basketball, but we don`t have the problems that men`s basketball has. The women know they have to have goals, to make something of themselves.``

At halftime on Dec. 21, in a runaway over Charleston, the coach told the team: ``Let`s get it over with,`` but Wells was not so sure it was her night.

``We came out after halftime and Lisa Ribble said to me, `I feel it -- do you?` and I said, `No, all I feel is sick.` But when I saw how excited she was, I said, `Let`s go for it.` ``

Early in the second half, Charleston sank a basket and Wells said, ``See you-all later,`` as she broke downcourt. Ribble took the in-bounds pass and fired the ball to halfcourt.

``I made two or three dribbles, and then I took the glide,`` Wells reports. ``It went through, and then came all the excitement.``

Her teammates mobbed her as if West Virginia had just won the national title. The celebration lasted so long that the officials called a technical foul on the Mountaineers -- ``a perfect call,`` Fiske says.

Wells insists the second dunk, on a pass from Dora Post, was better: ``I felt more confident. One girl grabbed my left wrist, but I spun away from her and the officials didn`t see the foul, and I took a few dribbles, and I did it again.``

Wells would like the Women`s Basketball League, which had a shaky renaissance season last fall, to survive so she can keep her dunks in America.

``I`ve got an over-the-top dunk,`` she reports, ``a two-handed dunk and a baseline dunk. Backhand? I`m working on that one.``